I'm a financial journalist and author with experience as a lawyer, speaker and entrepreneur. As a senior editor at Forbes, I have covered the broad range of topics that affect boomers as they approach retirement age. That means everything from financial strategies and investment scams to working and living better as we get older. My most recent book is Estate Planning Smarts -- a guide for baby boomers and their parents. If you have story ideas or tips, please e-mail me at: deborah [at] estateplanningsmarts [dot] com. You can also follow me on Twitter

Love them or hate them, at some point you may find yourself working with a headhunter. So it’s helpful to understand how they operate. A headhunter has something you don’t have: inside information from the job market and knowledge about openings that will never be advertised. An experienced headhunter can search more efficiently for jobs than you can. Our goal is to match you with a job. Choose and use us wisely and we can be a catalyst for your career.

If you get that job, we get our fee. Plus we leave a trail of happy people – you and our client company – whose recommendations are good for business.

When a headhunter contacts you about a job, your chance of getting it is 25% to 33%.

In an ideal world, headhunting is a win-win. But here are some things a headhunter probably will not tell you.

1. “Three months ago, I was selling shoes.” You cannot study headhunting; we have all done another job before. Therefore, we might not understand what you do for a living or what the job we’re recruiting you for entails. Although we will gladly accept the assignment to search for a CIO, for example, we might have no idea about what makes a good one or whether this job will advance your career.

In other words, we are generalists in a world of specialists. So do your research and do not expect us to give you well-informed answers to your questions about the company or job responsibilities.

2. “I haven’t read your résumé or cover letter.” Our decision about whether to call you for an opening is based on a 5 to 10-second glance at your résumé. So make sure we can quickly spot the essential information. Boil your bio down to a maximum of two or three pages. Consider adding an executive summary at the top, letting us know what makes you special. For instance, “MBA, 15 years sales leadership, fluent Spanish,” will get your message through, even if the recruiter doesn’t read the rest of your résumé. Avoid hackneyed words like, “dynamic,” “proven track record” or “team player.”

3.“You don’t make a good presentation.” Based on your outfit, the way you carry yourself, or the way you speak, a headhunter might decide not to put you in front of a customer. Although only one candidate will be hired, our aim is to get positive feedback on all of them. Our fantasy is for a client to say, “The four candidates you presented were all fantastic. I will retain A and B and as a back-up also C and D. You wowed me and I will never ever again work with anyone else.”

Recruitment is part science and part art. If we have invited you to meet us, we did so because we thought that you could do the job; that’s the technical part–“the science.” Your motivation, attitude and presentation are “the art.” Once you make it to the interview with us, focus on these three. Impress us, and we will be confident to work with you.

4. “You are not competitive in today’s labor market.” There’s no substitute for a solid education if you want to make a career as a knowledge worker. The good news is that there are excellent alternatives to a Harvard MBA. Online studies have become more widely accepted and decision makers care less about where you earned your degree. Furthermore, executive education such as Ivy League senior management programs (also called “mini MBAs”) can lift your profile to today’s standards. The term “lifelong learning” – though overused – is the No. 1 buzzword for today’s career management. If you want to be competitive for the next decades, you must hop on that train.

5. “I probably will not find you a job.” A headhunter may invite you to meet about a specific job or for a generic interview. To fill a job, we usually see no more than 10 candidates and present the client with a “short-list” of three or four of them. Only one will be hired, so your chances of getting the job when there’s an opening are 25-33%.

However, if we invite you for a generic interview, we usually find a new job for 1 or 2 out of the 10 candidates – that’s an industry average. In that case, the probability that we will help you land a job is 20%.

In short, although headhunters play an essential role in the labor market and many jobs can only be accessed through recruiters, the numbers are working against you.

6. “I won’t tell you why you have been rejected.” We will present candidates once, maybe twice – but not a third time if they have been rejected. Sadly, you may never learn from your mistakes, since we will not tell you the truth about why you didn’t get a second interview. Our client might say you seemed narrow-minded or out of date, but we won’t pass that along to you.

To improve your chances in the future, ask headhunters who you have worked with in the past, colleagues or bosses for feedback. Then take their comments to heart.

7. “You are the missing candidate for my ‘short-list,’ but you don’t have a prayer of getting this job.” Our second invoice is due upon presentation of a “short-list” of three candidates. If we only have two good ones, we have to find a third. The terms we use are “challenger” or “outsider.” If you hear those words, don’t get your hopes up.

Finally, beware of unrealistic career moves or a job that sounds too good to be true. Due diligence is your responsibility–not the headhunter’s. No one cares about your career as much as you do.

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I typically get a few calls each month and it’s fairly obvious most have not read my resume beyond my name, number and summary. I don’t mind though, I’m always open to hearing about new opportunities.

Most often, the job is either outside my interest or would require relocation, which is not an option for me due to other factors. I usually offer to look through my contacts for people I know who might be interested and put them in touch.

Thanks for having shared what ” the Seven Things A Headhunter Won’t Tell You”, interesting and no comments to do regarding the content of this rational, realistic and straight forward article. Just love in this context the parallel between the technical part–“the science.” and and the presentation “the art.”… KR

I think I would agree with most of this, most candidates think its the job of a headhunter to find them a job, realistically its the job of a headhunter to fill a clients job. Although I take issue with point 6, I’m pretty honest when it comes to this feedback, obviously you here things that can’t be repeated but although honest feedback might be a sharp pain for the candidate, long term they will hopefully thank you for it!

Thinking about point 6, from only two job interviews did I get feedback (curiously I got the job for those 2 interviews). In my opinion, I prefer to hear this feedback, it allows me to learn from any mistakes I might have made or build up on skills / experience or knowlegde I may need. I see it as something positive, although I do understand that some people’s emotional intelligence isn’t quite the best.

A good headhunter will indeed give you constructive feedback – but cannot share a discriminating or unhelpful one.

I gave the example of “narrow-minded” in the article. My feedback would in this case be “Think about giving examples where you proved to be innovative, challenged the status quo or were a change agent.”

My favorite (comedically) job descriptions include “MBA required”, implying irrespective of what you may have accomplished already professionally. It’s like interviewing for an airline pilot job and being told “you’re not qualified because you didn’t go to Piper Cub basic flight school” when you spent the last 4 years flying a fighter jet.